Scottish songwriter and musician Aidan Moffat has written a song about his favourite place: the wall in Falkirk where he used to meet up and hang about with his friends as a youngster. The Scottish Book Trust has asked celebrities and ordinary people to submit some writing about their favourite place in Scotland. Many are romantic texts about the beauty of the landscape but many will recognise these less misty-eyed teenage years growing up in Scotland. If you want to listen to the audio its available here.

Look out for the photography competition for My Favourite Place in Scotland; deadline for entries is Friday 31 August.

There’s a picture of you on that wall
as the sun sets down on the town hall,
with a hopeful smile but head held down,
watching buses breaking out of town.

We had to make some big decisions
so we gossiped till the sun was gone;
soon you’d be studying at uni,
and soon I’d be signing on.

And the cells where we will spend the night
when they misconstrue a friendly fight
after getting drunk with secret skill,
just a moment from us up the hill.

How many nights did we run by here
with the Casuals on our heels?
How much cheap wine was swigged and swallowed
as we dined on deep-fried meals?

They swung their skates and spat
but at least they missed your head,
and I heard a rumour that
at least one of them’s now dead.
But the buses stopped for us
after a few more idle years,
and we fled without much fuss,
in search of cradles and careers.
It’s a picture of you I can’t find,
but forever mounted in my mind;
of the place where we would dream and vow,

and I wonder where you might be now.